An humble inquiry into the rules of the Word of God, concerning the qualifications…

OBJECT. IX. If sanctifying Grace be requisite to a due Approach to the Lord's Table, then no Man may come but he that knows he has such Grace. A Man must not only think he has a Right to the Lord's Supper, in order to his lawful partaking of it; but he must know he has a Right. If nothing but Sanctification gives him a real Right to the Lord's Supper, then nothing short of the Knowledge of Sanctification gives him a known Right to it: Only an Opinion and probable Hopes of a Right will not warrant his coming.

ANSW. 1. I desire those who insist on this as an invincible Argument, to consider calmly whether they themselves ever did, or ever will stand to it. For here these two Things are to be observed,

(1) If no Man may warrantably come to the Lord's Supper but such as know they have a Right, then no unconverted Persons may come unless they not only think, but know 'tis the Mind of God, that unconverted Persons should come, and know that he don't require Grace in order to their coming. For unless they know that Men may come without Grace, they can't know that they themselves have a Right to come being without Grace. And will any one assert and stand to it, that of Necessity all adult Persons, of every Age, Rank and Condition of Life, must be so versed in this Controversy, as to have a Certainty in this Matter, in order to their coming to the Lord's Supper? It would be most absurd for any to assert it a Point of easy Proof, the Evidence of which is so clear and obvious to every one of every Capacity, as to supersede all Occasion for their being studied in Divinity, in Order to a Certainty of it's Truth, That Persons may come to the sacred Table of the Lord, notwithstanding they know themselves to be unconverted! Especially considering, it seems a Matter of plain Fact, that the Contrary to this Opinion has been in general the Judgment of Protestant Divines and Churches, from the Reformation to this Day; and that the bigger Part of the greatest Divines that have ever appeared in the World, who have spent their Lives in the diligent prayerful study of Divinity, have been fixed in the Reverse of that Opinion. This is sufficient at least to show, that this Opinion is not so plain as not to be a disputable Point; and that the Evidence of it is not so obvious to Persons of the lowest Capacity and little Inquiry, as that all may come to a Certainty in the Matter, without Difficulty and without Study.—I would humbly ask here. What has been the Case in Fact in our Churches, who have practised for so many Years on this Principle? Can it be pretended, or was it ever supposed, that the Communicants in general, even Persons of mean Intellectuals and low Education, not excepting the very Boys and Girls of sixteen Years old, that have been taken into the Church, had so studied Divinity, as not only to think, but know, that our pious Forefathers, and almost all the Protestant and Christian Divines in the World have been